The Angry Bear

Eight out of ten of our poorest states are former states of the Confederacy. Less than a handful of the original Confederate states have been able to begin to rise. The ‘again’ was always impossible. Because, in the antebellum South, one percent of the population had all the wealth; most whites were little, if any, better off than slaves. —, politically unstable, economy dependent on the export of one or two products such as agricultural products,...

Pulling another Lloyd Alter Carbon Upfront commentary. Been reading Lloyd for a number of years and going back to Slate’s The Fray. Those years could be measured in decades now. I like the older building and worked on some of them in Chicago. The old Union Carbon and Carbide bldg. comes to mind. It became a Hard Rock venture. Later it was taken over becoming a St. Jane hotel. A Burnham Brothers-design Art Deco build by a corporation around...

Why the index of leading indicators failed: examining the once in a lifetime post-pandemic tailwind  – by New Deal democrat Carl Quintanilla observed the one year anniversary of the following two days ago: I’ve written previously about what confounded that forecast. But let me highlight those issues again. 1. A 40% drop in gas prices, and a generalized 10% drop in commodity prices can do wonders for both producers and consumers. Here’s...

Good evening, hope all is well by you. Two days ago, my wife of 52 years took off to my oldest son’s home to visit and to meet my youngest son’s woman friend. We are very pleased with this and the story behind all of this is long and too enduring to be told here. However here is another story of a man and his family thriving in the US in his own business. The day before my wife went to Chicago, my neighbor Aldofo asked if we would attend...

The collapse of the existing home market continues in September  – by New Deal democrat September was yet another month in the ongoing collapse of existing home sales. To wit, sales declined another -8,000 on an annualized basis to 3.960 million. This is the lowest number since August 2010. And aside from that one singular month, it is the lowest since 1995! [Note that this is similar to the collapse in purchase mortgage applications, also at...

Obviously the only thing any reasonable person would do is point and laugh at the Republicans. I am not that reasonable person, so I will try to think of a solution. Obviously one very boring possibility is that the Republicans will finally get their act together and elect a speaker. This is the most likely outcome, but very far from optimal. The other possibility is that a speaker will be elected by a bipartisan majority like the majority...

I first became a history autodidact in my 20s, trying to understand the difference between my worldview and those of my parents and in-laws. >100 histories and biographies later, I have a great appreciation of just how awful the 20th century was. In my lifetime, I remember political assassinations, race riots, the Vietnam war, recessions, 9/11, the anthrax scare and the US invasion and military occupation of Iraq. Not to mention COVID-19, which is...

This is a portion (1 of 6 observations) of a much longer Employer Healthcare Benefits article which would have been impossible to feature in entirety at AB. If I did so, much of it would probably go unread. I was interested in how much concern employees have about company healthcare insurance costs. In particular, I was looking at what employees thought about their plans and its affordability as show in chart 6. Costs, Inflation and Affordability...

Initial claims on the cusp of turning lower YoY  – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims dropped below 200,000 last week for the first time since January, and not too far from the 50+ year low of 182,000 set in September one year ago. Specifically, they declined -13,000 to 198,000. The four-week average declined -1,000 to 205,750, the lowest since February. Contrarily, with the usual one-week lag, continuing claims rose 29,000 to 1.734...

A Chance to Modernize Health Care behind Bars, Section 1115 Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Waivers | NEJM, Brendan Saloner, Ph.D. California and Washington are the first states to receive waivers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regarding the Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy. The policy generally prohibits Medicaid from paying for health care for people who are incarcerated. That being said, ~2 million Americans were...